You'll have to forgive me for being in a literary mood this week; I've recently picked up (again) Dr. Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Shippey is discussing Tolkien's love for philology (the study of language - but not as a linguist, who studies different languages, but a philologist, who studies how language and literature come together... at least, I think that is what a philologist does. At the very least, he is a lover of languages). There is a tension between Tolkien's belief that language studies was deeply meaningful and those who felt that it was not nearly so important and sought to dispose of philoloical studies. This excerpt seems to highlight how we can assume too much about the correctness of our personal tastes of preferences.
"...Tolkien concluded that the problem lay not with the the philologists nor with what they taught but with what he called 'misologists' - haters of the word. There would be no harm if they simply concluded language study was not for them, out of dullness or ignorance. But what he felt, Tolkien said, was:
grievance that certain professional persons should suppose their dullness and ignorance to be a human norm; and anger when they have sought to impose the limitation of their minds upon younger minds, dissuading those with philological curiosity from their bent, encouraging those without this interest to believe that their lack marked them as minds of a superior order." (Shippey, xvi-xvii)
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